There's an old joke about the guy who goes to a psychiatrist. "I want you to take a look at these ink blots," says the psychiatrist. "What do you see?"
The man looks at the first picture. "A man and a woman making love on a rock slide," he says. "It's pretty torrid."

"Hmm," says the psychiatrist. He shows the man a dozen more pictures. For each one, the man describes a very explicit sexual encounter.

A couple of weeks ago, News-Press editor Rich Bangs called me to say he was devoting a section of the paper to books and local writers. As a librarian, I enthusiastically approved. (And as a poet, I'll even be submitting a piece or two.)

He also asked the library to contribute a weekly list of "What's Hot." We define that as items that have more than three people waiting to read them. You'll be seeing that listing weekly.

But I thought I should explain a few things about how the library does business.

On Christmas Day, at 2 o'clock in the morning, my 9-year-old daughter woke me up to say "Merry Christmas!" I had at that point been in bed for a solid, restful stretch of almost 45 minutes. But with true Christmas spirit, I responded, "Go back to sleep!"

Maddy vibrated with anticipation for another four hours. (We could feel her bed shake through the floor boards.) Eventually, she did get us all assembled before the glittering tree with its mounds of gifts.